Quark Theatre co-founder/director Tony Isbell has a tidy description for Allen Barton’s play, Years to the Day: “It’s sort of like if David Mamet had written a play set in a version of our world with a slightly different history.”
Years to the Day is difficult to describe in a way that makes it sound as dynamic as it should: two middle-aged guys — former college pals, still digitally networked — organize a face-to-face coffee reunion and discover via device-steeped, and rant-laden conversation, the vast differences between connected and connecting. “Politics and the personal are irrevocably intertwined,” Isbell says. “It’s sort of like what happens on Facebook when you discover that an old college chum has completely changed his political stripes. Or maybe he was ‘that way’ all along, and it just never came up. Can you remain friends with someone who has a radically different view of the world?”
Who doesn’t ask that question several times a week?
A Downtown Memphis Commission program to help revitalize Downtown’s North side has provided Quark with a temporary home. Years to the Day is being presented at 7 N. Main, Sept 8-29. Details here.
